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WILLAMETTE WEEK: Valerie June Brought Old-Time Glamor and Life-Affirming Blues to the Aladdin

Valerie June smiled, her teeth brilliantly white against red lipstick. She leaned close enough into the microphone to kiss it and said, “See, I have something that not many people get to have in this world.”

The whole Aladdin Theater quieted, even those rabid fans clustered at the front of the dance floor, desperate to hear June’s secret revealed.

“An elephant,” she finally said, matter-of-factly. She then explained that this was what her bandmates had nicknamed her massive wardrobe suitcase.

June’s whole presence—unapologetic Tennessee drawl, head-to-toe sequins and gems, bare feet, dendritic dreadlocks—seems a romantic relic from a bygone era of show-business gloss, like if Tammy Wynette or Lynn Anderson developed an incongruent interest in the blues. Read more here.